The Final Two: Red!

Ben BleiweissWednesday, August 13, 2008

ello everyone, and welcome back to Building on a Budget, the column dedicated to building decks that cost 30 tickets or less using Magic Online. My name is Ben Bleiweiss, and I'll be your host for two of the next three weeks (I have a week off next week, and then I return for my final column). In last week's column, I continued the series where I take a random list of rares that all cost half a ticket or less, such as this one:

Immediately I can see that there are a few dead cards here (Wild Research without mana to activate it? Mudhole at all?), but random is random, and what color embraces randomness more than red? Still, I'm pretty sure that there are a few candidates here that are not long for the world, so with that in mind, I shuffled up (electronically) for Game 1!

I end up trading a Reckless Embermage for a Vesuvan Shapeshifter, at which point astateofdissipation drops Swamp Mosquito, clones it twice, and backs them with double Swarmyard. Although I have a lot of creatures on the board, I am unable to outrace his ability to regenerate his Mosquitoes and then poison me to death.

I like the idea of having something to use with a lot of Mountains, and Jaws of Stone seems like a ton of fun for a mono-red deck—kind of like Volcanic Winds, but able to go straight to the head. I also have visions of being about to conspire it with Wort, for a good 12-14 damage to the head.

I break through by ramping up to eight, allowing me to drop Wort, the Raidmother without having to lose my Mountain / Swamps to his Algae. When he drops another Porphyry Nodes, I play and conspire Jaws of Stone, hitting each of his tokens for one, and doming him for 12 damage, plus 10 from my attacking creatures. He gets two more blockers on his turn, but I have a second Jaws of Stone, and I am able to send 18 damage directly to his head, outracing his life gain and winning the game.

I start to get back into the game with a Shivan Hellkite, but it is shut down quickly with Faith's Fetters. I then drop Shivan Dragon, and start swinging for an upwards of 17 damage a turn (taking 3 damage each time I swing). I hit him five times with Shivan Dragon (for a total of around 100 damage), and then drop Wort, the Raidmother. This enables me to get back-to-back Jaws of Stone for 24 each, bringing electricmessiah back down to a manageable life range.

As I get stuck on 2 life (without any more chance to attack), I start pinging electricmessiah once a turn with my Embermage (once on his turn, and once on my turn), adding Lavaborn Muse for an extra 3 damage a turn against his empty hand. He gets a last-ditch Beacon to stave off death for a turn, but I am able to finish him off with Lavaborn Muse to seal a victory that was, at one point, 160ish life points away.

I've had a few games that ended so far with a hugely conspired Jaws of Stone. So I decide to make the focus of the deck "Bang! You're dead!" I want cards that will destroy my opponent from out of nowhere. Blazing Shoal is a fun choice, because I already have a bunch of high-cost cards in my deck (4 Wort, 4 Jaws of Stone), so it will often pitch for +6 damage. I add in Akroma, Angel of Fury, because I can both play it early game (turn three), morph it (turn six), drop it steady (turn eight), or pitch it to Shoal (+8 damage). Oxidda Golem is another "Mountains matter" card to add to this deck, adding a bit of speed via haste.

Were I to keep evolving the deck, I would continue to focus on cards that can wipe out my opponent in a single turn—perhaps more Relentless Assault (which work well with Wort and with Blazing Shoal) so that my creatures are more often lethal in a single (set of) swings. I also might want some global sweepers, such as Pyroclasm, Sulfurous Blast, or the such, because X/1, X/2, and X/3 flying creatures seemed to give me trouble.

Wow, Ben hasn't had a poll in quite a long time. Did he forget to finish up the green deck evolution this week?

Of course not! Would he mention it in a poll if he did?Of course he did! I don't see it in this article!Given Ben's history, not only are we never going to see the green deck finished, but he'd skip the white deck evolution just to mess with us.